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Title: The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James, Martin E. Marty ISBN: 0-14-039034-0 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1983 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.34 (29 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The religious temperament
Comment: William James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" is about the psychology of religion, two subjects which under normal circumstances hardly interest me, but its appeal for readers who have no interest in the psychology of religion is literary rather than scholarly. Transcribed from a series of lectures, James's book investigates man's need for religion -- the stimuli, besides institutional or parental influences, that compel a person to be truly religious, to have a deep spiritual communication with a higher power that surpasses in significance the mindless attendance of prayer services and recitation of liturgies by rote at the prompting of some guy in a robe standing behind a pulpit.
James discloses that he is neither a theologian nor a religious person himself, which gives him two advantages -- first, that he presents his subject as an empirical science rather than groundless philosophy or internal speculation, and second, that he is free of bias, for how could a religious person be trusted not to sway the study exclusively towards his own experiences? Variety is the key, and religious experiences are necessarily as various as fingerprints; James's purpose is not to identify the commonalities that group a certain selection of people into a single organized religion but to highlight their differences.
The religious phenomena discussed in the book cover a wide range of concepts like conversion, fanaticism, asceticism, sacrifice, saintliness, and mysticism, which James defines more or less as a state of consciousness invoked by a transient surge of sensation rather than by mental effort. The religious urge, James concludes, comes from an inherent sense of "wrongness": Man, being imperfect or aware of imperfections in himself, needs God or a higher power to represent perfection and to save him from his wrongness.
One thesis is on the happiness that results from religious satisfaction, to which "mind cures," involving the association of a healthy body with a healthy mind, are related. James then introduces the idea of the "sick soul," in which he asserts that evil, by which he means hopelessness and pessimism, is a disease -- a notion, incidentally, that had been satirized by Samuel Butler in "Erewhon." Another interesting insight, reminiscent of the theme of Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," is the observation that the atheistic denial of God has a religiously zealous temperament of its own.
Even though these are lectures, James doesn't do all the talking. He frequently relates people's religious experiences in their own words; in fact, I estimate that quotations and footnotes constitute more than half of the text. The recipient of a thorough education, James was one of the great American intellectual voices of his century but is never pedantic; his fluent prose bears strangely little resemblance to the garish constructions of his novelist brother Henry. The book's emphasis on psychology may surprise a reader who expects a work on traditional theology, and its impartiality may offend one who insists on the absolute sovereignty of his own religion, but James deserves credit for a perspective that is original and intelligent without intending to be controversial.
Rating: 5
Summary: Good God, it's Brilliant!
Comment: You will go through the book, and you will ask yourself what you just read! What the heck was this? I remember reading this years and years ago. It is a book that weaned me off the materialistic bent, that I now find laughably inadequate. But that's not all. Willam James knew all this a _century_ ago.
Brilliant, this should not be confused with religious doctorine. It transcends this.
One of the few rare books that will make you feel absolutely drunk after each topic!
Rating: 5
Summary: A Foundation for Better Understanding
Comment: Objective and to the point, William James creates a framework for understanding. He explains the logic behind various ways of thinking without entirely condemning any of these views. James dips into sixth sense experiences and discusses the validity of these experiences based on their unanimity as well as the insignificance of unanimity and more importantly the changes personal experiences can cause in someone's life. Touching on various topics James leaves little unexplained and at the same time stresses the lack of scientific knowledge on many of these subjects and therefore our inability to draw specific conclusions. This book is carefully constructed and can be enlightening for those of us who lack in-depth knowledge of the subject or for the most seasoned researchers.
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Title: The Will to Believe, Human Immortality by William James ISBN: 0486202917 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1956 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The Meaning of Truth (Great Books in Philosophy) by William James ISBN: 1573921386 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Pragmatism by William James ISBN: 0486282708 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 02 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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Title: Principles of Psychology (Volume 1) by William James ISBN: 0486203816 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1950 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto, John W. Harvey ISBN: 0195002105 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: December, 1958 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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